The 12th generation Intel Core Alder Lake chips are officially announced. There are six new chips presented, all bringing performance improvements over the previous generation.
"The 12th Intel Core processor is an architectural leap that was made possible by the close co-engineering of software and hardware resulting in far superior performance over previous generations," said Gregory Bryant, Intel Executive Vice President and General Manager of Client Computing Group.
Initially there were three models to be released, namely the Core i9-12900K, Core i7-12700K, and Core i5-12600K. Then there will be 'KF' versions of each of these chips that don't carry an integrated GPU.
The Santa Clara-based chip company says the 12th generation Intel Core chips mark the company's shift to hybrid designs. Intel calls the change the "Biggest Architectural Shift in a Decade."
Instead of having multiple cores with the same clock speed and performance, Intel's new chips are equipped with a combination of P-cores (Performance cores) and E-cores (Efficient cores). The new architecture is similar to what Apple's M-series chips have - the big.LITTLE ARM architecture.
"We are now at the beginning of a new era of PCs with the introduction of Windows 11," said Panos Panay, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Microsoft.
"With Windows 11 and the latest Intel Thread Director technology, users will experience a much higher level of PC performance through the 12th Gen Intel Core processor family," he said.
12th Generation Intel Core Photo: Intel
The new chip works in the same way as today's smartphones. The P-core performs heavy-duty tasks while the E-core performs lower-level tasks, such as playing music or viewing videos offline.
The number of P-cores and E-cores differs across models. For example, a 16-core i9-12900K has 8 P-cores and 8 E-cores, while a 10-core i5-12600K has 6 P-cores and 4 E-cores. One thing to note here is that only P-core supports multi-threading and not E-core.
Also, since the cores are now split into two versions, Intel determines base, boost, and max clock speeds for the P-core and E-Core. The Intel Core 12th Gen i9-12900K has a base clock speed of 3.2GHz, a boost clock speed of 5.1GHz, and a max clock speed of 5.2GHz for P-cores. For the E-core Core i9-12900K, Intel says that it has a clock speed of 2.4GHz base clock and 3.9GHz boost clock speed.
Intel also dictates major improvements in other CPU specs. The new models are equipped with a large cache size.
Intel Core 12th Generation Alder Lake Announced. Photo: Intel
The i9 model has a 30MB L3 cache, the i7 has 25MB, and the i5 has a 20MB cache. All of them support DDR5 RAM up to 4800 MT/s. The CPU has support for up to 20 PCIe lanes (16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes).
When it comes to graphics, Intel says its integrated GPU is now 20% faster than NVIDIA's newest RTX GPU. Coupled with DDR5 RAM, Intel says its 12th Gen Core processors are capable of 36% faster photo editing, up to 32% faster video editing, up to 37% faster 3D modeling, and up to 100% faster multi-frame rendering performance.
Intel's new processors can be pre-ordered starting today. Shipments will begin on November 4. It's a bit more expensive than its predecessor. Here are the price details:
Core i9-12900K: up to 3.2GHz P-core, 2.4GHz E-core, 5.2GHz boost - USD 589
Core i9-12900KF: up to 3.2GHz P-core, 2.4GHz E-core, 5.2GHz boost - USD 564
Core i7-12700K : up to 3.6GHz P-core, 2.7GHz E-core, 5.0GHz boost - USD 409
Core i7-12700KF: up to 3.6GHz P-core, 2.7GHz E-core, 5.0GHz boost - USD 384
Core i5-12600K: up to 3.7GHz P-core, 2.8GHz E-core, 4.9GHz boost - USD 289
Core i5-12600KF: up to 3.7GHz P-core, 2.8GHz E-core, 4.9GHz boost - USD 264
